Ex-footballer backs gambling scheme
By Jamie Duncan
20oct05

CourierMail

FORMER AFL footballer David Schwarz has two people to thank for rescuing him from a destructive gambling habit – his fiancee and his accountant.

Schwarz, 33, a former Melbourne Demons vice-captain and 173-game veteran who retired from the game in 2002, said he lost $500,000 in a year at his gambling peak, and turned over $100,000 in bets in one day.

His gambling problem began at his local TAB at the age of 14 and ended in March this year.

Speaking at the Certified Practising Accountants (CPA) congress in Melbourne today, Schwarz backed the extension of a joint program between CPA Victoria and the Victorian Government to tackle problem gambling in the workplace.

The crunch for Schwarz came two years ago when his fiancee, Karen Tanner, opened a box containing 2200 unopened letters – unpaid bills, fines and GST slips.

They argued and Schwarz had to choose between his fiancee and gambling.

"I had to make a decision and the punt was the thing that I decided to let go," he said.

"It took us nearly two years to get through this backlog of letters. Karen said, 'I will do whatever you need, but you have to help yourself'."

Schwarz slowly weaned himself from gambling and had his final bet on March 22 this year.

He went through five accountants in 10 years as his finances became more difficult because he did not like the warnings they gave him, he said.

"They were saying, 'Hang on, you're earning $400,000 but every year you seem to be losing $500,000. Where's it all going?"' he said.

"I was lying to my accountants and lied to the footy club, but there's one person in your life it's very hard to lie to, and that's your partner."

With the help of Ms Tanner and his latest accountant, Jason Cunningham, Schwarz said he was "back on the right track".

"There was one guy I could go into and say, 'This is where I'm at. What do I do? How do I get out of it, and that was my accountant'," he said.

"I couldn't go to my boss or the football club because I was too proud."

CPA Victoria past president Alan Bliss, a member of the Victorian Government's anti-gambling task force, said the CPA program began a year ago and had just received a new $55,000 government grant.

The program helps businesses recognise the signs of problem gambling in workers, prevent gambling-related fraud and direct victims to support schemes.

He said CPA Victoria had a membership of 26,000 and could reach much of the state's workforce.

Last Update: Tuesday, October 18, 2005. 2:36pm (AEST)

ABC Newsonline

NSW Govt criticised over 'greedy' poker machine taxes

Clubs NSW has accused the former Treasurer Michael Egan of having a personal vendetta against clubs, after the release of Treasury documents shows he ignored advice from clubs on the poker machine tax.

The Treasury advice from 2003 was obtained by the clubs industry under freedom of information laws and shows it recommended to Mr Egan that an $800 million tax increase over seven years would be a "manageable adjustment burden on the industry."

However Mr Egan ignored the advice and almost doubled the recommendation to take an extra $1.8 billion.

Clubs NSW president David Costello says clubs were always happy to pay more but it proves Mr Egan's agenda.

"He showed it over many years," Mr Costello said.

"I don't know the reasons for that but quite clearly his attitude to clubs has put the Labor Party in a very poor light with the community."

A spokesman for the Premier Morris Iemma says clubs have put a new proposal to the Government which is being considered.

The Opposition leader Peter Debnam says the Treasury documents prove the Government was driven by greed.

Mr Debnam says the Mr Iemma must reverse the decision.

"We make the point again to Morris Iemma today, we want a fair tax rate with the clubs industry," he said.

"Morris, come out, agree the Labor Party got it wrong with the tax rates, agree that the Coalition's policy, which is to freeze the tax rates as at today's rates, is a fair tax on the clubs industry."

INTERNATIONAL

By Pete Harrison

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's casinos have missed out on a boom in online gaming over the past several years, but deals with sports-betting firms still offer a belated route into the new multi-billion-dollar industry.

Online casinos and poker rooms are currently raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars every hour of the day in a market valued at up to $12 billion (6.8 billion pounds) a year globally.

But Stanley Leisure, Britain's biggest casino operator, has apparently resigned itself to taking a back seat. On Monday, Stanley sold its online casino business to Leisure & Gaming Plc for just 1.9 million pounds.

"If Stanley could have made it work, they wouldn't have sold," said analyst Charles Wilson at Bridgewell Securities. "This shows the online casino brands are so much more powerful than the bricks-and-mortar casino brands."

And while shares in online gamers have recently taken a dive, the companies are still generating large amounts of cash. PartyGaming, for example, is earning revenue of just over $100,000 an hour and looks set to do so with less competition than once feared.

Analyst Paul Leyland at Seymour Pierce said Stanley's problems were shared by all bricks-and-mortar casino firms. "All UK terrestrial gaming operators have struggled to gain traction online," he said in a research note.

Part of their problem is that while individual casino names such as Crockfords and Les Ambassadeurs might ring bells, the companies behind them, Stanley and London Clubs, have virtually no brand recognition.

Only betting shop owners such as William Hill, Ladbrokes and Coral have succeeded in using their brand names to advantage, largely through sports betting.

SPORTS BETTING

Gala Group struggled to develop its own casino Web sites, said Chief Executive Neil Goulden, but all that changed when it agreed this month to buy betting shop chain Coral Eurobet for 2.18 billion pounds.

"Leaving aside the poker guys, the models that seem to work are the Williams Hill model, the Ladbroke, the Coral Eurobet and indeed the Sportingbet model, where the entry portal for the online business is sports betting," Goulden said.

"People enter for the sports betting and they trade on into the casino," he added. "We were amazed to see how much more successful Coral Eurobet had been in developing a casino site than we'd been, simply because they had the entry point of sports betting."

Goulden said that the need for a sports-betting element raised the online casino world's barriers to entry.

"In terms of having a sports book, if you're not one of the recognised big bricks-and-mortar operators, you're going to have problems having any credibility for people to take your odds," he said.

Rank has also chosen to twin online casino with sports betting on its Blue Square site, and London Clubs says it is still evaluating its options.

Meanwhile, smaller Internet specialists are gaining ground quickly.

Greg Feehely at Altium Securities said Leisure & Gaming's acquisition of Stanley's online casino was a cheap way of gaining access to around 1 million customers.

"They've picked up access to a million customers at a very good price," he said. "We understand that over the years Stanley invested in its online casino more than four times what L&G paid for it," Feehely said.

Stanley declined to comment.

Women hooked on the pokies

19 October 2005

By KIM THOMAS
www.stuff.co.nz

Lonely 30-something single women addicted to pokie machines are the new face of problem gamblers, experts say.

Women account for more than half of New Zealanders with gambling problems, compared with about 20 per cent a decade ago and are almost exclusively addicted to pokie machines, the country's longest-running study on the addiction shows.

Gambling researcher Professor Max Abbott said the group with the worst incidence of pathological gambling were those aged between 25 and 35, and increasingly women.

Abbott, who has completed a seven-year study on gambling, said lower wage earners once made up a large proportion of pathological gamblers but this was no longer the case and people from all walks of life were afflicted.

Abbott, of the Auckland University of Technology, said between 2 per cent and 3 per cent of New Zealanders were pathological gamblers but up to 25 per cent fell into the unhealthy category of using gaming machines once a week or more.

Single people were more likely to let their attraction to gambling run away with them without the presence of someone to curb their addiction, Abbott said. Dr Sean Sullivan, director of the Auckland-based Abacus clinic which specialises in the treatment of addictions, said a large, but as yet unmeasured number of pathological female gamblers were lonely women in their 30s who went to bars looking for company but ended up addicted to pokie machines.

"They are desperately wanting company but women who go to bars alone tend to attract dodgy types so they play a few games on the pokie machines and they eventually get hooked," he said.

Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand (PGF) chief executive John Stansfield said the lure of pokie machines, to single women who wanted to feel like they were part of a social scene, should not be underrated.

"They want to go out, they want to get dressed up or feel like they are out on a special occasion, but there are very few places they can do that by themselves," he said.

"Playing the pokies they can do that, but they (pokie machines) are seductive beyond belief."

One 30-plus woman who attended a PGF group described to Stansfield the lack of alternatives for single women in bars.

"Where can I go out in this city socially, all dressed up, and not look like I'm trying to pull?"

Stansfield said there had been a significant increase in problem gamblers in New Zealand since the introduction of pokie machines in bars, clubs and casinos - with the biggest impact now hitting women.

"Pokie machines are the reason we have women with gambling problems today.

"They single-handedly feminised gambling in this country, compared to the old alternative of racing."

While the growing number of women with out-of-control use of pokie machines was concerning, there was a silver lining to the cloud.

Abbott's study found 90 per cent of people addicted to pokie machines conquered their problem within seven years. Of those addicted to racing gambling, less than half overcame their problem within the same time.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) is responsible for funding and co-ordinating problem gambling counselling.

Latest MOH figures showed 4780 clients received face-to-face counselling services last year, an increase of almost 15 per cent from the year before. The number of clients had grown every year since 1991. Almost 4200 people called the national helpline last year.

For the first time last year, female gamblers going to counselling services exceeded males.

Most new callers, 83 per cent, said they were hooked on non-casino pokie machines, with nearly 95 per cent of new female clients reporting pokies as their primary problem.

Auckland and Christchurch remained the areas with the most new clients, the statistics showed.